Deutscher and Hackett

A senior and highly respected man in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, Jimmy Baker was one of the first artists to paint for Tjungu Palya, the community-based art centre at Nyapari just off the Gunbarrel highway in north-west South Australia. Baker began painting in 2004 and although he produced a relatively small body of work, his cultural status as a traditional healer (ngangkari) and senior law man gives his paintings an air of authority and integrity. First exhibited in 2005 at the Desert Mob exhibition held annually in Alice Springs, his paintings were subsequently included at the exhibition every year until 2009. 

Katatjita, 2006 was one of three paintings by Jimmy Baker featured in the inaugural Australian Indigenous Art Triennial, Culture Warriors held at the National Gallery of Australia in 2007. The painting recalls an episode from the Kanpi Tjukurpa (Dreaming story of Kanpi) that takes place at Katatjita, a rock hole with a large underground cave to the west of Nyapari. The story tells of a woman named Malilu from the Tjukurpa (Creation time) who is taking refuge in the cave. Having refused the advances of a man who wanted to sleep with her, Malilu was speared many times by the man before she escaped to the safety of the cave.

Baker's work has been exhibited widely to much acclaim and his paintings are held in the collections of most State public galleries, together with significant international collections. The tightly placed dots creating fields of colour alongside clearly defined lines and roundels are typical motifs within Baker's repertoire. His paintings hold physical, geographical, spiritual and ceremonial overtones with each work a multi-layered journey into the land that he paints, sharing stories, significant sites or paths etched in the landscape by ancestral beings. 

Jimmy Baker is survived by his three children, Anton, Kay and Marita, all of whom are artists in their own right and paint for Tjungu Palya.